Hasui, Kawase (1883 – 1957), “The Fuji River (Dai-oban Format)”

Notes: RARE; DAI-OBAN FORMAT. Provenance: Purchased from S. H. Mori in Chicago, mid-1930s. Three generations in an American family collection. One of the major themes in Hasui’s works from 1930’s is Mount Fuji. Mount Fuji is often used as a symbol of the nation or government. Therefore, the popularity of Mount Fuji in Hasui’s period partly responses to growing nationalism of the period. In Hokusai’s time, depiction of Mount Fuji was also popular. The Edo people worshiped it as the Holy Mountain based on Shintöism and seemed to use the Fuji pictures as charms against some kinds of mishap in the unstable society of the late Edo period. Both Hokusai’s and Hasui’s Fuji is horizontally rendered, and both seem to stand with mysterious power. - From Nostalgic Japan exhibition, 10/18/2004.